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I was very drunk. My perceptions had a frame-by-frame quality, and the evening didn’t seem immediate: pieces of it were foreign, disconnected as a dream. I was being bitten very hard on the arm. It would leave marks the next day.

I was so muddled by assorted things that even now I can’t sort out how I felt at that moment. When Richard’s nails scored my skin I gasped, but I didn’t ask him to stop. I flinched away, but he kept a firm grip on me. “Beg for mercy,” he said softly.

Frame. Skip. I discovered that a mutual friend of ours had seen us, stopped, and was sitting on the grass across from Richard. “Hey,” he said. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“It’s okay,” Richard said, “she likes it,” and pulled my hair hard enough to force me to bow my head. I do? I managed to think, before thought vanished back into the blur of alcohol and pain. Our friend’s face loomed over me, concern sketched vividly on his features.

I closed my eyes.

“Mercy,” I whispered.

* * *

Later, Richard reminded me of something I said that night: “I wish I’d met you years ago.” Thinking hard, I could only recall the evening in broad strokes. We’d gotten drunk at an outdoor party; he’d hurt me a bit; I’d said that; and then I’d staggered off to help clean up.

“A lot of crap comes out when you do this stuff,” he now said. A few weeks had passed. I was lying on my stomach across the foot of his bed. Sitting perpendicular to me, he leaned back and propped his feet on the small of my back. Thin and pale, he tended to wear black, and had intense dark eyes. It was summer in 2005. I was twenty years old.

He’d asked me why I wanted to be hurt. I couldn’t work out an answer — wasn’t certain the question was valid — so I asked him why he liked to hurt people. He’d half-laughed, with a tone that I couldn’t evaluate. Ruefully? “That’s a long, dark road,” he’d said.

“How do you know?” I asked, irritated by his presumption, nervously curious. I wasn’t sure I was what he thought I was — wasn’t sure what had been going on that night, beyond alcohol dulling my reactions and feelings. But I knew I hadn’t been abused or violated. I hadn’t asked him to stop, and I wanted to figure out why. “How did you know about me?”

“I can tell,” he said, and grinned. “With you, it was obvious.” He paused, added quietly, “You were begging for it.”

A couple of hours later, we remained fully clothed, my face was buried in his pillow, and I was crying. He’d pinned me down so I couldn’t move, and was raking his nails across what was exposed of my tank-topped back. When Richard first spotted the tears, he’d asked if I wanted a break. I’d said that it was okay, that he should continue, that I was fine.

I felt myself fragmenting, desperation and terror and pain pouring through me in an unbearable, necessary torrent. I told myself over and over that it didn’t hurt that much, but I couldn’t stop myself from tensing, crying out. After a while, I found myself saying, “No.”

I felt him check himself, shifting his weight from my back. “Can we clarify something?” he asked gently. “Do you really want me to stop when you say no?”

No, I realized, I don’t, and something vital in my psyche seemed to snap. The tears overwhelmed me. I couldn’t get an answer out through my sobs, but even if I could have, I haven’t the faintest idea what I might have said.

“We should take a break,” he decided, and moved away. I’ll never forget the relief — and desolation — I felt as he did.

* * *

It was a long time later that I remembered: I had met someone like Richard, years before. It had been in spring 2003; the guy was thin and pale, dressing mainly in black. I hadn’t once thought of him in a romantic light.

I’d counted him a friend, but had only been alone with him once. We were in his living room, seated next to each other on dun-colored carpet. I couldn’t recall how it started — we’d been sitting playing video games? had he tickled me as I shouted invective at the screen? — but it ended with him holding my wrists, me lying back on the floor and wondering how to get him off me.

I’d thought he might kiss me, so I turned my head away. Instead, he bit my neck. “No,” I said aloud, more in startlement than anything else, and he gave me a searching look — as if he wasn’t sure I was serious. “Please let me up,” I said, and he asked, “Why?”

I didn’t feel panicked, but strangely at a loss: he didn’t seem to take my objection seriously. Yet he wasn’t particularly threatening me, and I wasn’t afraid. I explained that I was in a committed, monogamous relationship I didn’t want to disrupt; I carefully didn’t react when he bit me again, although it hurt.

I didn’t say I wasn’t getting anything out of my powerlessness or his apparent desire to hurt me, that it left me cold. Maybe I wasn’t sure it would register: he hadn’t appeared to believe me when I first told him to let me up. And maybe something in me agreed that such a response was incorrect.

Eventually, I got away. Stupidly, confused, I mentioned the incident to my boyfriend. Of course he was furious; I had to calm him. For my part, it hadn’t occurred to me to be mad. That didn’t feel as bizarre as it sounds — on some level, I felt that the whole incident was reasonable, even if it hadn’t turned out to be what I wanted.

Not then. Not with him.

* * *

After I cried my heart out in his bed, Richard was very kind. He brought me a glass of water and listened as I said a lot of bewildered things. When I finally ran down, it was late; he invited me to sleep over, but didn’t put the moves on me. The next morning, he told me he had work to do. Straightforwardly, I asked when I could see him again. He smiled, said to email him, that we’d work something out.

The next few days — weeks — time, I don’t know; however long it was, it felt like being put through a shredder. I couldn’t think about anything but that night and how, through my turmoil and tears, I’d found a kind of exultation. I had been sober, prepared and clear-headed. I couldn’t find a way around the brutal, uncompromising revelation that apparently, I wanted nothing more than to be subordinated, used, hurt. I actually wanted to be a victim.

I wanted to talk to someone, but wasn’t sure how to frame my words. I was positive it would help to talk to Richard, but he was busy, and busy, and busy. I had a number of friends who I suspected were into hardcore BDSM; I could have called any of them. But it was one thing to be fine with other people doing it, and quite another to discover such a desire in myself. In another situation, I would have thoroughly deconstructed my obvious double standard — but just then, it was a minor irrationality on top of one big chunk of insanity.

I considered asking my loving, liberal parents for advice and tried to imagine how it would go.

Mom. Dad. I love you, and I’m so sorry. I know you’ve tried to give me an independent, rational, feminist outlook, as well as self-esteem and integrity. Sadly, none of this appears to have taken; I guess I’m a broken mockery of everything you tried to instill. I don’t want you to worry, or blame yourselves, but have you any advice on where to go from here?

No.

* * *

My mental images of that summer are hazy with remembered anger. As Richard remained occupied, I felt fury building within my fascination. I’m sure I felt like the classical woman spurned: he was nice enough when he ran into me and told me he was there to talk if I needed it, but the evidence contradicted his words. For weeks after that night, if I tried to see him he didn’t have time.

It didn’t help that he reacted very badly when I went after him aggressively — too aggressively, I knew, but couldn’t help it — and told him honestly how vulnerable I was. He backed off fast, leaving me more confused than ever. (Though not too confused to think: How stereotypical.)

It went beyond being a woman spurned, though. Especially since I believed, intellectually, that he didn’t owe it to me not to be busy. He wasn’t required to sort me out. And — since it seemed to be what I was after — he wasn’t obligated to continue hurting me. We’d just met, after all.

It was more that I was enraged by how desperately I wanted to be hurt — and infuriated that someone, anyone, could have such power over me. I had always thrown myself into infatuations; like most people, I’d been known to get angry at the object of my affections. But this was different. Not only was I infatuated, I was aching for something I couldn’t reconcile. Even if Richard had been the perfect counselor I had no right to expect, I might have hated him. As it was, I felt toyed with, and found as many other reasons to dislike him as I could. As long as I could focus on wrath, I didn’t have to think about my other feelings.

It kept me from falling apart.

He was away for most of the summer. I went to a few trusted friends for reassurance and validation; giving few details, I allowed my anger to calcify. But Richard ended up surprising me. On a visit to Chicago, he called me every night for a week. The bruises he left took weeks to fade, some of them bleeding and leaving scars. I raged as I covered the worst of them — but felt also a low-burning fulfillment. One close friend, Andrew, caught sight of a bruise on my leg and cast me a worried look. “That looks pretty bad,” he observed, and I could only say, “Yes.”

By then, I’d well and truly internalized the belief that Richard didn’t want to deal with emotional vulnerability, and my furious resentment remained. This feeling was not helped by society in general; men hate emotions, right? Still, the more time I spent with him, the more I had to admit that he made an effort to be sensitive. Most of our failures to understand each other came from how different our relationship paradigms were, not to mention my unevenly-repressed identity crisis. I know I tried to warn Richard that I wasn’t doing well at expressing myself and that what I thought, or felt, or believed I was might change on short notice; but I doubt I got even that concept across.

He identified fairly publicly as a BDSMer, and made it clear that he considered me superficial and cowardly because I was unsure about doing so myself. He was also polyamorous, a lifestyle that I had some experience with — but though I respected others’ choices to engage in it, I’d decided against polyamory for myself. It felt strange to draw the parallel, but it was somewhat like dealing with a difficult boyfriend. Still, I didn’t trust him, and our relationship didn’t particularly involve sex.

Just pain.

Towards the end of one night, wan light filtering through my curtains, Richard inquired unexpectedly, “Are you happy with the way we are now?”

“What do you mean?” I temporized, sighing inwardly. Now I’d have to come up with a rational, coherent answer that would satisfy him. In those days, rationality and coherence felt like improbable dreams.

Richard explained that he hadn’t particularly been satisfied with how he’d dealt with me before he left, but hadn’t had time for anything better. Now, he thought the situation was “healthier”. “What do you want from this?” he asked seriously.

I want the strength to walk away from you, I thought unclearly. I want you to actually care about me. I never want to see you again. I hugged my arms to myself, resting my hands gingerly on swelling skin. “Um,” I said slowly, “nothing in particular?” I took a breath and gathered the one overriding fact: I want you to keep hurting me. “I don’t expect anything from you,” I told him, “and I don’t want you to expect anything from me.”

I knew from his smile that my answer was the right one. I could only hope it was accurate.

* * *

The summer passed, Richard away again for the end of it, then returning in September for the beginning of the school year. I, however, was leaving the city soon, and would be gone for some time. Those days were my last chances to see him for a while, and I was acutely aware of his nearness: I felt oriented towards him, as if I were a compass and he was North.

But I still felt the rage, lurking under the surface of my mind like a submerged monster. And though I ached with disturbingly intense thoughts of violence, it seemed that I was staying away from Richard, closing him out when I ran into him. He finally confronted me and asked, blunt as ever, if I was avoiding him. I denied it reflexively. How could I avoid North?

“I’m still figuring out how I feel about you,” I told him as we walked late one night on the waterfront. I’d started to come to terms with being a masochist, had begun to assimilate that into my self-image, but that didn’t explain why it had taken him to force the knowledge on me. The man I’d known in 2003, for instance, made no impression — though he’d obviously seen exactly what Richard saw, and had taken almost exactly the same approach. And I’d known heavily, formally BDSM-identifying folks for years. I’d even experimented with light bondage in previous relationships — being gently tied up, for instance — though I hadn’t found it especially compelling.

Was it that I’d been drunk the first time I encountered Richard, my careful rational mind turned off? Was it that nothing less drastic than the bruises he’d left could have forced my understanding? Was it simply that I’d been romantically unhappy at the time, whereas I’d been content when that other man pinned me to the floor? Even in the midst of my now-constant confusion, I couldn’t stop myself from analyzing it all to bits. Now I concluded that I ought to know how I felt about Richard if I wanted to get to the roots of myself.

It had taken me a while to call my openly-BDSM friends for advice, but — maybe around the same time I really started acclimating — I had. One of their offhand comments came to mind. “I guess there’s no reason you would know this,” she’d said, “but it’s fairly common for people to have one person who’s their lover, and a separate person for inflicting pain.”

I thought about that, and about Richard saying, “A lot of crap comes out when you do this stuff.” I considered the maxims that tell us that the opposite of love isn’t actually hate, and how much time I’d spent encouraging myself to hate him. Finally, I admitted that the only term I had to cover this depth of emotion was “love” … but that couldn’t make it feel like the right word. Then again, it wasn’t exactly “hate”, either.

He was a demon, an idol. He hardly felt like a person to me.

I didn’t vocalize any of this. Coming back from the waterfront, we arrived at the intersection where Richard would go to his apartment and I’d return to mine. An awkward pause ensued: I was leaving in a few days, and wouldn’t be alone with him again. Watching him, I wondered if he was thinking about asking me over, or was looking for an excuse not to. I looked away.

“Goodnight,” I said. Walking home, I wished I felt strong.

* * *

It was after I left Chicago that I really started piecing myself back together. My anger drained away quickly, as if an infected wound had been lanced. Perhaps I found my strength under the scab. I figured that maybe all this did identify something about my personality, but it didn’t tell the whole story. Even now, I could be independent, rational, and feminist, with self-esteem and integrity. Right? Right.

It was impossible to deny that the desires were real — and when I allowed myself to focus on them, I didn’t try. Ruminating on my past, I recalled heart-twisting details that put everything in a certain compelling context. It wasn’t just the man who’d gone after me in 2003. Wincing, I remembered childhood fantasies: I’d compulsively written and drawn brutal dreams until, at some confused middle-school point, their horror came home to me and I recoiled. In those long-repressed fictions of slavery and pain, I recognized my newly-acknowledged desires.

One conversation I’d had with an early boyfriend rang in my head. “There’s a dark current inside me,” I’d told him. Self-consciously, I’d averted my eyes at my own melodrama. “I don’t know how to be with you, when I feel it.” I hadn’t exactly been trying to leave him, but I’d needed something more.

The last dream I remember of Richard didn’t involve any pain at all: he just kissed me. Awakening, I felt a melancholy pang. Richard invested a lot of self-conception in being a sadist, and he was so distant — I couldn’t imagine relating to him as a lover. And I knew our relationship (such as it was) would never have started without BDSM as a focus. Previous to that night at the outdoor party, he’d hardly registered on my romantic radar, and we had little in common in terms of how we dealt with relationships.

Still, for a moment I wished — unreasonably, I knew — that I could have fallen straightforwardly in love.

* * *

I was gone for six months, and I returned in heartbreak. A relationship more important than words can encompass had become — after years of attempts — impossible. I think it was obvious. One friend told me vulnerability was all over me; like a scent, I thought, and wondered if Richard could smell it. In worse shape than ever, I saw Richard and laughed with an edge to my voice. I gave him doe-eyed looks, but deflected his interest with doublespeak and icy tones. I wanted him, and I felt the rage returning. I hated and sheltered behind the unclear verbal games we played. Furious and despairing, I refused to chase him, yet I felt him everywhere. North.

I had to do something. My identity had somewhat solidified: I was into BDSM. I believed it, I even accepted it, but I couldn’t go on feeling like I did.

In looking around the Internet, I came upon a directory of Kink Aware Professionals, including therapists who provided their names for people who needed to talk about BDSM but feared judgment. I visited two. One listened to me silently, with a vaguely sorrowful expression; he offered no feedback, and left me wondering why he’d listed his name in the directory. He obviously didn’t know what to do with me, and I got the uneasy feeling that I worried him. Naturally, that didn’t help at all.

Luckily, the other was everything I could have asked for — open, patient, clearly knowledgeable about BDSM. He looked straight at me and nodded understandingly when I confessed the whole trail of events; he explained how common my experience was; he gave me ideas about where to look for more information, but didn’t try to put his own preferences into our talks. “Most people in your situation feel that they’ve broken a major taboo,” he said. “A lot try to get away from BDSM. But I’m not hearing that from you. You want to adjust, not escape.” I nodded, and arranged to see him regularly.

Still, I don’t think I could have put myself together again without two other things.

My close friend Andrew went after me at a drunken party. Shades of Richard, I might have thought, but I never did. Andrew pinned me to the floor, laughed as I fought back, hurt me, finally kissed me. When I asked in bewilderment what brought this on, he confessed. “When you were gone, I missed you,” he whispered, “and I’ve never missed anyone like that before.” He was as afraid of the darkness of BDSM as I had been, yet he’d thought of me and found himself fantasizing. He wanted to try it with me, but first he wanted to be sure that he and I would remain close — wouldn’t lose what we already had.

In everything Andrew told me — everything we said to each other, laughing, almost in tears, burying each other in embraces, happily drunk and clear-eyed in the morning — I found the things that were missing with Richard. Uncertain about BDSM, guarding his and my boundaries, Andrew wanted to commit to me and to a devoted monogamous relationship. Part of me counseled caution and withdrawal, but as my therapist laughingly put it, Andrew was as tempting as an ice-cream factory. It was my chance to fall straightforwardly in love.

Soon after that, I had to explain to my parents why I wanted a psychiatrist who was out-of-network for my health insurance. I closed my eyes as my father asked why I needed this specialist, what his focus was. “S&M,” I said shortly.

Why had I worried? I knew my parents had striven to give me an independent, rational, feminist outlook. Self-esteem and integrity. I was so lucky, I understood as my father said nothing but, “All right.” It was a blinding realization: my father might have judged me with all the worst things I thought of myself — but instead, he trusted me to do my best.

When I called my mother (long separated from my dad), too many of my flatmates were around for a private conversation indoors. I banished myself into a warm summer storm, cradling my cell phone away from the rain. There was a pause after I said the fateful words — then she said, “Have you talked to your father about this?”

“Yes,” I said hesitantly. “Why?”

“Well, I think it was an issue in our marriage that I was more into that stuff than he was.”

Fat droplets soaked my hair. The tight knot in my chest — familiar for nearly a year — loosened as I caught my breath. I turned my face up to the sky and let the tilted world resettle around me; my mother’s faraway voice helped me through a hundred things that had torn my heart. “You aren’t giving up your liberation,” she reminded me, and emphasized my continuing right to a partner who respects me. She even noted mildly that she’d “wondered” about me when I was a child.

I’d feared that I was damaged, that there was something deeply broken in me. I’d wildly guessed that I’d suffered trauma and repressed the memories. But if my mother — one of the most independent, feminist women I’ve ever met — could reconcile BDSM, then I knew I could. And if she was into BDSM herself, then rather than viewing my proclivities as damage, I could see them as something intrinsic we shared.

Over the next hour, my mother told me I could retain rationality, self-esteem and integrity. For the first time, I found myself believing it.

There was one loose end to a conclusion that felt like a fairy tale. Though we had some unfettered conversations, tension remained between me and Richard — perhaps it even worsened. At one point, observing us, Andrew said mildly: “Settle down, you two.”

Worse, Andrew and I were going in different directions. I finally felt somewhat at peace with BDSM, but he couldn’t gain that comfort, and started backing away from it. It was impossible not to think of Richard and shiver, remembering how uncompromisingly vicious he could be. When Andrew and I broke up over a year later, I knew: I shouldn’t see Richard. My therapist warned me to be careful with BDSM when my heart was in pieces.

Of course I wasn’t.

It was the first time I’d explicitly pursued Richard since he’d told me, so long ago, that he was busy. I emailed him straightforwardly, sat down on his bed shortly after Andrew and I broke up. When Richard set his fingernails into my skin, he murmured, “It’s been a while,” as if he’d always known he’d see me here again. The tears came more quickly than they once had — I’d fought them then, unwilling to break down in front of him. I’d been successful, too. Richard had only made me cry once, before.

This is what I want, I reminded myself as Richard wound his hand in my hair and pulled my head back. His teeth bruising my shoulder felt familiar and wrong. A kiss on my neck sent me rigid. Sobs nearly choked me. Why now, my heart cried, why not when you were who I dreamed of, Richard?

I couldn’t fault his empathy — he pulled away. “No,” I said unwillingly, “I’m fine,” but he wouldn’t continue. Uneasily, he pointed out that I’d never reacted like that. I said he’d never kissed me like that, and he asked, “Really?” as if it were a surprise.

Yes, I thought, forcing my tears away. I was desperate for it. I know.

To get him to keep hurting me, I had to convince him that I was fine. This is what I want, I coached myself. I was nearly composed when Richard mentioned Andrew, and I felt grief rip me open.

He watched me cry, got me a glass of water. Shades of two years ago, I might have thought, but I never did. I apologized; he said only, “I thought this might happen.” On some level, I knew that I had, too — for all my self-reassurances that I would be fine. What was I thinking? I asked myself, and the answer came instantly. I had to know.

When Richard asked if I wanted to sleep over, I said I didn’t. “Then don’t go yet,” he said softly, putting his arms around me where I lay. I rested my head on his chest. I won’t tell Andrew about this, I decided, wondering if he and I would be together again. Even if I’ve learned that I don’t want Richard anymore.

* * *

In retrospect, it seems surreal that I reacted so badly to my BDSM orientation. The agonizing memories of my adjustment have lost their emotional flavor. I’ve learned a lot about how to practice BDSM safely — physically and emotionally. I’ve had multiple BDSM partners, and I’ve had positive experiences in the welcoming BDSM subculture. In recent times, I’ve even begun to switch: occasionally I’ll be the dominant partner, though I feel submissive masochism far closer to my core.

Still, I remember the unease I felt at first — and I recognize stronger unease in others. I certainly wouldn’t describe this orientation to, say, an employer. I believe BDSM needs a liberation movement, just like homosexuality, but I’m not (yet?) ready to be a public spokeswoman. And I definitely wouldn’t consider dragging others out of the closet. I write about BDSM under a pseudonym, and I have changed the names of Richard and Andrew.

I fear that others will read this narrative as describing an assault, a near-rape — and a woman who tried to rationalize her experience by embracing it. That’s not what happened. When Richard first pulled my head back and hurt me at that drunken outdoor party, I could have said no. The word was echoing in my mind, waiting on my lips, and I didn’t say it because I didn’t want him to stop. I was certainly intoxicated, but I wasn’t helpless. I was threatened, but I was not afraid. I may have fought self-actualization like a caged animal, but I could not deny it. I have always been this way.

Conversely, I’m afraid that some conservative will read this and say: “Look how the feminist movement has failed us!” That’s not what happened, either. I identify as feminist, and I don’t believe that to be at odds with being a submissive masochist. Indeed, I believe that the feminist movement helped my practice of BDSM: it’s one of the factors that gave me the strength and self-assurance required to figure out and discuss my sexual needs.

Andrew and I did get back together; then we broke up again. Richard and I have had other nights together. I wish this narrative ended cleanly. I wish I could say that I’ve found a fairy-tale lover, that I’m now with a man who both hurts me till I cry and gives me the relationship I want. (Why stop there? He could be rich and handsome and a great cook, too!) But this is my story, not a fairy tale. Just as well; that means I still have space to learn. I believe I’ve gotten better at communicating clearly. I believe I’ve gotten better at sorting out the harsh emotions inspired by BDSM, working with — and enjoying! — those feelings in the context of a loving relationship. And I hope I no longer objectify my sadistic partners to the extent that I objectified Richard. Still, I know I’ve got a ways to go.

I see BDSM as a continuum — similar to the theory that homosexuality is a continuum — and sometimes I think that everyone’s on the continuum to some degree. I don’t think Andrew is as far into the continuum as I am, and not as far as Richard, either. But there are reasons I was with Andrew for nearly two years, yet never let myself fall completely into Richard.

A certain kind of devoted relationship is important to me. I felt strongly about Richard, and he was a good fit for BDSM, but he couldn’t give me the relationship I want. I went back to Andrew, though he was far less into BDSM, because I was able to love him. I wonder, though: if I ever fall for a completely vanilla man, will I be able to compromise that far? It seems unlikely. Maybe if that happens I’ll have to remember my friend’s words and find a separate person, a non-lover who inflicts pain.

I’d rather not do that, but I can’t imagine giving up BDSM. The idea feels equivalent to a vow of celibacy. As my therapist said, I’m not looking to escape — especially not now that I’ve finally adjusted. It wasn’t easy, but I feel that today I am triumphant. And I believe, I hope, that knowing what I want is the surest path to falling straightforwardly — happily — in love.

* * *

This piece is included in my awesome collection, The S&M Feminist: Best Of Clarisse Thorn. You can buy The S&M Feminist for Amazon Kindle here or other ebook formats here or in paperback here.

Thank you so much for writing this. I am just starting to understand / come to terms with my sexuality, and bdsm being a part of that. I am starting to learn and understand the difficulties of love, sex and relationships. Reading this was therapeutic.

You’re only 25. To think you have “finally adjusted” is naive and shortsighted…just wait until you hit 30. You have only just started to explore this side of your life. You have a lot more to learn, and a lot more to assimilate. Any alternative lifestyle brings more liberation and more actualization as our personalities evolve to levels that continuously want to push the status quo.

This is a start, and it will be a great adventure. I hope you chronicle every new enlightenment. Thanks for the read.

Peter, I appreciate the positive feedback, and as I noted in the piece I’m aware that I’ve got a lot to learn. I’d also appreciate it, however, if you could take my word for it when I say that I’ve adjusted. I think I have a pretty good grip on how well I’ve worked out my anxieties.

You know what I find so interesting about your story? Three things, I think:

1. “I could tell”

In the context of a story or a fantasy, that’s SO HOT. I’ve wanted someone to say that to me forever. No one ever has. Yet I think if the first guy with whom I “experimented with BDSM” had said it, I would not have found it hot. It would have brought up a lot of conflicting emotions. I’m sure what would have won out would have been scorn and anger at his (entirely true) presumption.

I’ve had many friends who openly enjoyed BDSM fetish nights. Some who identified themselves as being dominant or submissive. Not one of them EVER looked at me and said, “you.”

I think if SM-dar occurs it’s because we drop hints.

It’s just interesting to me that someone actually said that to you.

2. “Rage” and “Hatred”

And when it came to it, very little about the reality matched my fantasies. Oh, sometimes what we did matched the way a real-life even can match a fantasy. There were moments that were… Transcendental.

But there were many more moments that…were deeply, deeply conflicted. I NEVER expected to feel that much…anger…toward someone dominating me and inflicting pain. I expected it to be a relief. I didn’t expect to wrestle with hatred.

He liked to slap my face. Everytime he did it I would feel this burst of pure hatred. At one point he asked if I liked it. I said, “No. I hate it. But I don’t want you to stop doing it.”

I can’t remember right now if any other “coming out” story I’ve ever read included such a visceral description of anger. Of course, I think the last time I read one I hadn’t experienced it myself. Maybe I never noticed it before, but noticed it this time because it resonated with me. But mostly I remember those stories mentioning fear, shame, worry, and embarrassment.

Hmm…and I remember the sub blogs being so weirdly…cheerful. They worried about misrepresenting themselves. They mentioned sometimes feeling a resistance. They wondered if they could “serve” as well as their “masters” hoped. I think I would remember if they had ever mentioned bone-shaking hatred.

3. Lover AND someone who inflicts pain

I’m aware of the practice, but have never considered it for myself. The two are very much intertwined. Do you identify primarily as a masochist? I take it pain doesn’t need to be framed in a sexual context?

On point 1) Yeah, I agree — I think that (now) it would be really hot if someone said that to me in the context of a well-understood encounter. But when Richard first said it, it was pretty annoying. To this day I still don’t know if I would have found him so hot if he hadn’t been so presumptuous … but that very presumption is one of the factors that makes our relationship, even to this day, complicated and difficult and often distrustful.

2) I had a moment once with Richard, that first summer I was coming into S&M, when he said something along the lines of “Why are you so into this?” And I snapped, “I’m not.” And he asked why I kept meeting up with him and doing it, then. And I said something like, “I don’t like it, but it feels like a necessary step in my personal development.”

That’s the thing. When my partners are really putting me under, really taking me apart, I rarely actually like it. I say that I like it because there’s no other word for how much I want it, crave it, need it.

On anger: I don’t feel as much anger towards my other partners as I did towards Richard. I think the anger I felt towards Richard was at least as much caused by the fact that he was kinda cavalier about my feelings, as it was by what we were doing together.

These days, when I find myself feeling a really visceral and harsh flash of anger during a scene, I see it as a sign that we should stop. The better encounters, and the better partners, make me feel afraid and desperate and enduring, but they don’t make me angry.

3) When I first started seeing Richard, and when I started writing this piece, I saw myself as more of a masochist than I submissive. In fact I quite violently denied any submission in what I was doing; I very carefully focused on the physical sensation. I wrote a bit about this once while writing about collars.

In retrospect, I recognize that I was in denial because I felt so much more internal stigma around being sexually submissive than being physically masochistic. But I have still had some casual encounters that were pure pain and enjoyed them (though I’ve had some moments of doubt about those).

S&M doesn’t have to be in an explicitly “sexual” context for me to want it, no. In fact, almost none of my most intense S&M scenes involved very much of what mainstream society would consider “sexual contact” (like genital touching, for example). It’s clearly a sexual urge in some very important ways, though, and framed properly it can be the biggest turn-on in the world. It’s just that … the S&M urge seems to run on a weirdly quasi-parallel track to my more hormonally sexual urges. A lot of the time the S&M urge just kind of goes alongside sexual feelings, and sometimes it crosses over, but it doesn’t have to. Man, this is hard to describe ….

Thanks for the comments, Anonymous. I’ve seen you comment on a few other posts today and it’s clear that you’ve thought deeply about these things.

[…] long time to get here, though, and I had to get through a ton of confused feelings. Not just about coming into my S&M identity, though that was certainly a factor, but also dealing with feelings around the orgasmic dysfunction […]

everything you wrote about made sense to me. i can understand how someone who has never felt that way could read this in a different light. it really is just like a switch that goes off. poof, there it is. and now you just cant shake the feeling. there is nothing like it. the dynamic between 2 people involved in an s&m duo is something that cant be faked or replaced by someone ‘trying’.

@Nancy — yeah, the lightbulb effect is something that’s so hard to communicate. I’m always interested in the reactions of vanilla or mostly-vanilla people to this story because they often simply can’t get it, and I have to hope that I wrote well enough that I can communicate a feeling they have literally never had.

@Anonymous, again — I know you’re probably not still reading, but I came back here because I had an encounter over the weekend that made me rethink what I said about anger. This encounter was really extreme, it pushed my boundaries in a way that I haven’t in a really long time, and it was actually hard to tell whether I enjoyed it … or maybe a better way to put it is that it’s hard to tell whether I ever want to do anything like that again. But I don’t regret doing it, I’m actually incredibly glad that I did. And during the encounter, I got flashes of extreme anger that I haven’t gotten in ages. Did it intensify my reaction in a good way? Maybe.

Again, I’m not actually sure I ever want to do it again. But it was intense, and I loved that it was intense.

I’ve known for a long time that I’m not “vanilla”. I have a variety of sexual fetishes, fantasies or interests. Even as a child, I remember feeling “unknown”(but positive) sensations for weird things. I’m not mentioning them, because there’s a sense of guilt associated with it, I have issues with putting myself out there on many things, especially sex.

Enough with my bullshit. I came across your blog by chance and I really enjoyed this piece. I’m guilty that I didn’t discover you sooner. :)

It made my skin crawl, I nearly cried, when I read about your call with your mother, the point you “turned [your] face up to the sky and let the tilted world resettle around [you]” gave me a feeling of freedom.

I´m starting with BDSM. I´m more and more feeling confortable with this. But it´s still hard to accept.

I’ve been flipping through your blog for a while now, and I wanted to thank you for helping me reconcile the two powerful bits of myself – the out-to-save-the-world feminist, and the hurt-me-more-than-that masochist. I’ve been struggling with that for a few years now, and am finally in a relationship with someone who is nurturing of both of those things. It feels, sometimes, like a contradiction, being both strong and intentionally vulnerable; reading stories like this help.

Blargh. A lot more on my mind, ‘cuz I’m thinking about it now, but anyway, thanks n’ stuff.

As a newbie to your blog I have enjoyed catching up on the great posts that you have written. I really enjoyed reading your coming out story. As someone who is still working on revealing their true sexual identity it was a great read.

Wow. What a piece of writing! This was beautifully written, and so introspective. So many things you’ve said resonate with me to an astonishing degree. I have also been struggling with my identity as a feminist and whether it clashes with or compliments my BDSM interests. I just loved how you expressed so poignantly things I have barely been able to have clear realizations of. Great article, wish I had found it sooner!

“When Richard first pulled my head back and hurt me at that drunken outdoor party, I could have said no. The word was echoing in my mind, waiting on my lips, and I didn’t say it because I didn’t want him to stop. I was certainly intoxicated, but I wasn’t helpless. I was threatened, but I was not afraid. I may have fought self-actualization like a caged animal, but I could not deny it. I have always been this way.”

– This is something that is still somewhat of a mystery to me. Its like, does not refusing something mean that you want it? I was at a friend’s friends house last night and they have a cat there that they would slap on the butt, but the cat would stay there and not run away. If they slapped too hard it might run off, but it would come back within a short time… Now I’m sorry if comparing an animal to human behavior is offensive, but it just seems similar. How do you know its what you wanted? Why did you have to convince yourself while it was happening that you wanted it? On one hand I’m trying to be open and think that some people might actually like and seek out abuse, but on the other I feel like perhaps its a symptom of something deep pain inside them that they feel they deserve…

Secondly, I had a conversation about this topic on an old post over on Feministe, where someone told me I was not adequately representing my own consent. Here’s one of my comments in the conversation. Here’s a snip from the comment:

The fact that I didn’t explicitly say “I consented out loud” doesn’t mean that it wasn’t negotiated. People negotiate encounters in a lot of different ways. I tend to think that it was at least successfully if not very well-negotiated, and I know that Richard didn’t do anything that I did not consent to. Could it have been more explicitly and more directly negotiated? Yes. Would that have been safer on his part? Yes. Does that mean it wasn’t at all negotiated? That it was non-negotiated? No, it doesn’t.

Clarisse,
I’ve come back to this post now so many times. I’ve finally got round to blogging about my own experiences of coming out, and developing as a sub – and I know that I’ll be linking back here a lot, because everything I’ve read here has been so helpful. Thanks.

Thank you for writing such an insightful article about this very personal, and obviously difficult, experience. While I don’t really identify as a submissive because of a lack of experience, it’s something I’ve been thinking about and struggling with a lot lately.

I’m really interested in what you and Anonymous said about not actually liking the submissive/masochistic actions in the moment – I think that’s what I struggle with the most. If I want this, why don’t I really like it? It seems that this is about a lot more than just “liking” certain behaviors over others, and while I’m still trying to figure out how I actually feel, it means a lot to be able to read things like this.

Hey Anna B. It’s a thorny topic, and one that I obviously struggle with in different ways myself. I’ve been thinking a lot lately that so much of romance depends on concepts that are somewhat difficult to arrange on purpose: uncertainty, novelty, unpredictability, contrast. I think BDSM really hooks into these needs, but that doesn’t mean it always feels good in the way that we’re used to things feeling good. I’ve written about it a little bit recently, and I write about it more in my upcoming ebook Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser. But it’s so complicated!

Oh my god, this reminds me sooooo much of how I reacted to the first man that made me orgasm. I obsessed, I cried and I also got into therapy. It wasn’t because I saw orgasm as a deviant act, but I saw my lack of orgasm in partnered sex and his ability to provide it magical, special… almost singular. Wow. Thanks for the great read!

This doesn’t sound like BDSM, this sounds like you suffer from low self-esteem and have are convincing yourself that this is what you want. It sounds like violence to me. Sex and intimacy, in my opinion, should be tender and equal on both individuals- not harsh and male-dominant.

Aaand I approved L’s comment, above, to show that there are still people willing to go ahead and inform female submissives (and switches) that we are incorrect and our sexuality is a sign of emotional damage.

Further comments along those lines will be deleted; hatred and ignorance are not welcome here.

To L, and everyone thinking something similar: I invite you to read my book The S&M Feminist.

Oh my god. Reading this gave me chills and made me cry on the inside. My story is similar except that I have not found a sadist through chance or really at all. I’m just now, at 22, coming to accept myself for the submissive masochist I realize I’ve been my whole life, and trying to figure out what it is I’m even looking for. I’m also coming to terms with the “independent woman who wants to be subbed and hurt” inconsistency I’m feeling inside. My mom is open to BDSM porn but she doesn’t think she’d enjoy it in the bedroom. I would love to tell her about it and talk about what I’m experiencing and seeing on FetLife but I’m afraid that with my lack of sexual desire she wouldn’t understand & would disapprove of my desire to be hurt…

I am so happy I came upon this blog. I really needed to see this. Thank you so much.

[…] Charles Moser et al want to protect BDSM legally, as a sexual orientation, so that people can’t be fired or have their children taken away or suffer other consequences for being into BDSM. It is totally understandable that some BDSMers want this widespread recognition of their sexuality – because so much is at stake. And, as Thorn acknowledges in ‘BDSM versus Sex, part 2′: “We currently conceptualize sexuality through ‘orientations’: we have built a cultural ‘orientation model’ focused on the idea that ’acceptable’ sexuality is ‘built-in’, or ‘innate’. Some BDSMers consider BDSM an ‘orientation’ — and I, myself, once found that thinking of BDSM as an orientation was extremely helpful in coming to terms with my BDSM desires.” […]

I just found this blog yesterday, and it seems pretty amazing so far. I apologize in advance if this gets long.

The whole coming to terms with myself thing was a lot different for me, actually. I figured things out fairly early, but I didn’t even know BDSM existed. I read the word masochism in a book when I was probably about 12 or 13, looked it up in the dictionary, and was basically like “Oh, so that’s what I am. That explains a lot…wait it says I’m a pervert.” After finding out what masochism was, I remember hearing about sadists from crime shows, and I wondered why they just didn’t get with each other.

I found fanfiction at about that time, and while it wasn’t exactly accurate, it was comforting to find other people who felt similarly. Still, most of that stuff was rather extreme, and the few times I got brave enough to look up masochism or sadism, I got those websites proclaiming that people into BDSM couldn’t feel love and were obviously abused as children/going to turn into serial killers/accidentally kill themselves. When I started thinking I might be more of a switch, the “going to turn into a serial killer” one was definitely not helpful. Combined with the fact I thought I might be bi and either trans or at least a cross dresser (I have since figured out I’m probably non-binary), that was kind of a bad year. Add to that that I was generally thought of as “the innocent one” and I had no clue who to talk to about any of that.

Fortunately, when I was 14 I ended up befriending a transguy (who at the time presented as a butch lesbian) who liked writing m/m D/s fanfiction. We ended up RPing together, and that turned into BDSM fanfction which about half of my friends read. That kind of took care of the coming out for me. On the one hand, that was pretty convenient, and also showed me fairly convincing evidence that other people would not hate me for that. On the other, now I’ve dated people who have read porn that my ex and I wrote, which is a bit weird.

Despite all that, I didn’t found out much of anything about the BDSM community until last summer. Then again, I’m a senior in high school right now, so it isn’t like it’s been that long.

…Well I was right about it getting long. Sorry again, I just haven’t really had a chance to talk about that much (mainly the earlier parts, as everyone I know seems to know about the fanfiction bit).

I’m a submissive, but I’m interested in a few things from my past that came out in a “not-kinky-friendly” therapy session, which may or may not have been childhood abuse that has been literally blocked from my conscious memory for about 25 years. I don’t want the past me and the present me and the future me to get shattered if I decide to do….resistance play, for example.

Any advice on working with “kinky-friendly” therapists? I’m still trying to find one.

Hi Liliana! My best advice really is to use the Kink Aware Professionals list to find someone in your area. If the link in my original article above is no longer pointing to the right place, then you can try Googling “kink aware professionals.” Best of luck :)

[…] thoughts of violence and an intense longing for more. I found Clarisse Thorn’s essay ‘Love Bites: An S&M coming out story’ particularly apt. Thorn is a feminist, writer, sex-positive activist, educator, and author of […]

[…] thoughts of violence and an intense longing for more. I found Clarisse Thorn’s essay ‘Love Bites: An S&M coming out story’ particularly apt. Thorn is a feminist, writer, sex-positive activist, educator, and author of […]

About Clarisse

On the other hand, I also wrote a different book about the subculture of men who trade tips on how to seduce and manipulate women:

I give great lectures on my favorite topics. I've spoken at a huge variety of places — academic institutions like the University of Chicago; new media conventions like South By Southwest; museums like the Museum of Sex; and lots of others.

I established myself by creating this blog. I don't update the blog much anymore, but you can still read my archives. My best writing is available in my books, anyway.

I've lived in Swaziland, Greece, Chicago, and a lot of other places. I've worked in game design, public health, and bookstores. Now I live in San Francisco, and I make my living with content strategy and user research.